~ musings of a campus minister

Does It Always Have to Be About Who’s Right or Wrong?

“Perhaps a better question that who’s right is, who’s living rightly.” (Rob Bell)

Living rightly is more about following Jesus and living His way, not who is right or wrong. Jesus demonstrates a way of living rightly that in all reality is more about freedom. It is freeing to be honest, not always easy… but freeing anyway. It is freeing to be kind, loving, generous etc… you get the idea. Living rightly is hard yet it is freeing and less stressful than to lie, or be mean and unkind. 1 st John says: “For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.” (5:3)

If following Jesus is not about being right but living rightly then I wonder why people feel the need to defend religious beliefs making it more about us and them… right and wrong. God doesn’t need defending, He can handle that himself I think, after all he is God Almighty and the Creator of the Universe. I think if we live our lives focused on following the example of Jesus we will be more willing to love people and introduce them to Jesus in a way that they will want to be a part of it too. That doesn’t happen when we have to assert rightness. We need to introduce them to Jesus and disciple them in Jesus. When that takes place then God will reveal himself and He will reveal those areas where growth needs to take place in all of us.